Cannot kill an already running profile!

OS>XP>ff3.6.19., not interested in upgrading right now. i know its hard to diagnose someones pc problems in a forum, but here goes. i have 2 profiles & 2 problems. i can't kill the 1st profile, been running since yesterday, its probably half way to china by now. its listed in the profiles.ini file, but of course its not in the task mgr. i did a "firefox files" search to include hidden files & found the profile folder for it, but inside it only shows 5 files>cache,offline cache,xpc.mfl,uxl.mfl,&urlclassifier3.sqlite. is there any secret insider way to kill it? i've tried all the methods on mozillazine & support.mozilla, ask & google searches, to no avail. rebooted many times, doesn't work. tried to create a 3rd profile, clicked to open it, & my 2nd profile opens instead, so for some reason now i can't create any new profiles. its listed in the p-mgr & profiles.ini file. also i reformatted my pc a few days ago, re-installed ff 3.6.18, pages loaded fast, installed same 4 extensions previously had along with a few of the same programs, same firewall, no problems there. updated to ff 3.6.19 2 days ago & now it takes TWICE as long to load pages. very SLOW. can't figure out why, i know its not the extensions. i'm getting headaches sitting here for hours trying to sort it all out. THANX for your time/help anyone, SORRY for the long post.

When you start Firefox, are you always starting in the Profile Manager and choosing a specific profile?

Please note that when you want to start a second (simultaneously running) instance of Firefox in a different profile, you need to use the command-line switch -no-remote in order to start up separately from the first session. For example:

Start > Run > firefox.exe -no-remote /ProfileManager

As for the performance issue, maybe this will help??

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Upon further review, can you explain what you mean when you say that Firefox is running in one profile, but there is no firefox.exe in the Task Manager/Processes tab to kill? Can you verify that you are viewing all processes, including ones started by the system or other users? (I think there is a checkbox for that, or maybe it's a menu choice, in the Task Manager.)

If it isn't listed in the Task Manager, how do you know that it's running?

THANX for the reply. On the mozillazine forums, someone told me that the 1st profile is really not running at all, its really the "parent.lock" file that has me locked out so it says its still running when I try to open it. I read about that yrs ago & again recently, but forgot that could be the problem. Unfortunately, when I open the profiles folder, the 1st profile isn't listed, so I can't delete the lock file. In the past when I wanted to use the 2nd profile, I opened the p-mgr. to use it. I've never tried to run 2 profiles simultaneously. Someone else on support.mozilla said to > DELETE ALL PROFILES mentioned in the window. Now Exit the Profile Manager. Now go to: C:\Documents and Settings\H\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\

Delete All Folders inside this folder (though none of them should still be there since you have deleted all profiles). Restart your computer.

-> Start the Profile Manager again and CREATE A BRAND NEW USER PROFILE.

Check and tell if its working. Of course I have my all my bookmarks backed up to a cd & flash drive (I like to have 2 backup files in case one doesn't work), so I guess I'll try that out tomorrow (sunday). I created a 3rd profile today, to transfer my backup bookmarks from my 1st profile, & it wouldn't open up. It opened the 2nd profile instead, the only one that works. Usually right after you create one, it opens right up. I even typed it in to the "profils.ini" folder so it would stay listed in the p-mgr., but it still wouldn't open. Very strange. Anyway, I hope I can create new profiles tomorrow, but if I can't, I'll uninstall ff & reinstall it. I'm actually more concerned with the fact that after the reformat, when I clicked to open my bookmarks, the pages load very SLOWLY. Before the reformat, they loaded pretty fast. I have the same 4 extensions, the same firewall, some of the same programs, not as many as before though. I can take alittle pause here & there, but not as slow as they load now. I know there are different variables that contribute to that, but the waiting is very frustrating. Anyway, again I'm SORRY for the long rambling post.